Whewell’s Gazette
Your weekly digest of all the best of
Internet history of science, technology and medicine
Editor in Chief: The Ghost of William Whewell
Year 2, Volume #27
Monday 18 January 2016
EDITORIAL:
Despite sub-zero temperatures and Twitter disturbances Whewell’s Gazette the weekly #histSTM link list is here once again bring you all of the histories of science, medicine and technology that we could find for your delectation in cyberspace over the last seven days.
Two famous repositories of information, The British Museum and Wikipedia share a birthday although the former is considerably older than the latter. All branches of knowledge require such repositories if they are to function properly and the history of encyclopaedias, libraries and museums is an important part of the histories of science, medicine and technology.
In his concepts of a third world of human knowledge Karl Popper asks his readers to imagine a world devastated by some form of disaster then poses the question, which society would recover fastest one in which all libraries and books had been lost or one in which this repositories of human knowledge had survived and were accessible to the recovering society. The answer should be obvious.
A free online encyclopaedia such as Wikipedia and public libraries and museums are immeasurably valuable resources for everybody that we often take for granted but without them life would be much poorer and often much more difficult.
Whewell’s Gazette a small repository of knowledge says support your local repositories wherever they are, you never know when you might need them.
Wikipedia shares its birthday with British Museum. How apt. – Andy Mabbett (@pigsonthe wing)
The British Museum Opened 15 January 1759
Montague House site of the original British Museum
Source: Wikimedia Commons
History Today: The British Museum Opened January 15th, 1759
Wikipedia was born 15 January 2000
Wikipedia logo
Source: Wikipedia
The Guardian: Wikipedia’s strength is in collaboration – as we’ve proved over 15 years
ars technica: On Wikipedia’s 15th Birthday, Ars shares the entries that most fascinate us
Yovisto: All the World’s Knowledge – Wikipedia
Quotes of the week:
“There’s a special place in Hull reserved for the inventor of autocorrect.” h/t @Amanda_Vickery
“In arboretum, trees are domesticated, or at least tame, but in adjacent meadow same trees are feral as escapee seeds from arboretum”. – Dolly Jørgensen (@DollyJørgensen)
“Many bizarre grammar “rules” stem from 18th-19th century grammarians trying to force English to be more like Latin. Ludicrously”. – Justine Larbalestier (@JustineLavaworm)
“Keep reading abt our ancestors “having sex with Neanderthals” = genetic inheritance. Um. Perhaps “our ancestors *included* Neanderthals”?” – Rebekah Higgitt (@beckyfh)
“None of the great discoveries in physics in he 20th C has contributed anything to an understanding of the living world”– Ernst Mayr h/t @philipcball
“Early on, I was taught that coding is the art of introducing bugs into an initially bug-free environment…” – @arclight
“That is, I believe, a fine task for historians: to be a danger to national myths.” – Eric Hobsbawm. h/t @SocialHistoryOx
Tribute to lab research mice-A monument portraying a labmouse knitting a DNAhelix was unveiled in Novosibirsk Russia
Birthdays of the Week:
Albert Hofmann born 11 January 1906
Albert Hofmann
Photo Hofmann.org
The Vaults of Erowid: Albert Hofmann
Benjamin Franklin born 17 January 1706:
Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky c. 1816 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, by Benjamin West
Benjamin Franklin In His Own Words
Discovery of the Week:
11 January 1787 William Herschel discovered Titania and Oberon, moons of Uranus
A montage of Uranus’s moons. Image credit: NASA
Universe Today: Uranus’ Moon Titania
Universe Today: Uranus’ Moon Oberon
Royal Museums Greenwich: The Herschel Family and the Royal Observatory
PHYSICS, ASTRONOMY & SPACE SCIENCE:
Yovisto: Carl David Anderson and the Positron
AHF: Isidor I. Rabi
The New Yorker: A Hydrogen Bomb by Any Other Name
malinc.se: Heliocentrism and Geocentrism
Universe Today: What is the Geocentric Model of the Universe?
AHF: In Memoriam: George Mahfouz
Forbes: The Surprisingly Old Physics of Wireless Charging
Yovisto: Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov Father of the Soviet Atom Bomb
Sky & Telescope: Solar System Featured on New U.S. Stamps
Voices of the Manhattan Project: Newton Stapleton’s Interview
Yovisto: Joseph Jackson Lister and the Microscope
Joseph Jackson Lister
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Skulls in the Stars: 1801: Fraunhofer gets research funding in the worst possible way
Yovisto: Edward Teller and Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove
NASA: Jet Propulsion Laboratory: NASA’s Stardust Sample Return was 10 Years Ago Today
Royal Astronomical Society: 100 years and counting: women in the RAS go from strength to strength
Annie Scott Dill Russell (later Annie Maunder), the solar physicist proposed for RAS Fellowship in 1892, who was finally admitted in 1916. Credit: Courtesy of Dorrie Giles.
RAS: Women and the RAS: 100 years of Fellowship
EXPLORATION and CARTOGRAPHY:
Royal Museums Greenwich: Conserving copper-green degradation on maps
The Guardian: Polar explorer Ernest Shackleton may have had a hole in his heart, doctors say
Atlas Obscura: 19th-Centuy Atlases Included Hundreds of Fake Islands
An 18th century British map with some made-up islands in Lake Superior
Source: Wikimedia Commons
British Library: Untold Lives blog: Mud Hovels, Mean Houses and Natural Philosophy
Yovisto: Matthew Fountaine Maury and the Oceanography
Hyperallergenic: Before Google earth: A Rare Cartographic Compendium From Renaissance Europe
The Washington Post: How a karma-seeking Redditor uncovered one of the world’s rarest atlases
The National Library of Norway / Nikolaj Blegvad.
npr: Norway’s National Library Discovers Rare Atlas – With a Little Help From Reddit
MEDICINE & HEALTH:
Thomas Morris: Killed by a cough
Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow: Auroscope invented by John Brunton
Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh: Daniel Carrion’s experiment: the use of self-infection in the advance of medicine
Center for the History of Medicine: On View: Bone box with appendicular bones
Thomas Morris: A medical old wives’ tale
JHI Blog: Wilhelm Reich: A Disappointed Utopian
Atlas Obscura: ‘Mind-Blowing’ Archaeological Find: Wooden Prosthetic for a Medieval Foot
An iron ring, likely used to stabilize a wooden prosthesis, was found in situ. (All Photos: Courtesy Österreichisches Archäologisches Institut (Austrian Archaeological Institute))
Live Science: Prosthetic Leg with Hoofed Foot Discovered in Ancient Chinese Tomb
Medievalists.net: A History of Tonsillectomy: Two Millenia of Trauma, Hemorrhage and Controversy
Concocting History: Seeing with new eyes
Surgeon’s Hall Museum: Carcinoma
Public Domain Review: Anatomical Illustrations from 15th-century England
Holy Kaw!: 17th Century Medical Pop-Up Book
Phys.org: A medical pop-up book from the 17th century
Columbia librarians preparing the medical pop-up book for digitization. Credit: Columbia University Medical Center
Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh: Gymnastics and acrobatics as medical therapeutics
Thomas Morris: The woman who turned to soap
The Atlantic: The First Artificial Insemination Was an Ethical Nightmare
hatfield historical society: In-Flew-Enza: The Deadly Pandemic Strikes Hatfield
The Quack Doctor: The Amateur Anatomist and the Amputated Finger
Hyperallergic: Unraveling the Gendered History of Hypnotism
Advances in the History of Psychology: “Scientometric Trend Analysis of Publications on the History of Psychology”
A Covent Garden Gilflurt’s Guide to Life: The Finger Alphabet
Finger alphabet illustrations from The Invited Alphabet by R.R. published in 1809
NYAM: At the Crossroads of Art and Medicine
Thomas Morris: Putting a patient to sleep (without anaesthetic)
Contagions: Human Parasites of the Roman Empire
Thomas Morris: Dear oh dear
Strange Remains: A 13th Century Guide to Forensic Anthropology
Old Book Illustration: Doctor on His Way to Visit His Patient
TECHNOLOGY:
Yovisto: William Hedley and his Puffing Billy
Engineering Timelines: Louis Gustave Mouchel
Conciatore: Alchemical Glassware of 1600
Conciatore: Enamel
Conciatore: Neri’s Aleppo Connection
The Inland Waterways Association: The Father of English Canals – James Brindley
Photo: Packet House, Bridgwater Canal – Christine Smith
Innovating in Combat: Signalling at the Battle of Passchendaele, July to November
BBC News: The 19th Century plug that’s still being used
Smithsonian.com: How the Phonograph Changed Music Forever
UW–Milwaukee Special Collections: Typography Tuesday
Smithsonian.com: Radio Activity: The 100th Anniversary of Public Broadcasting
Confusions and Connections: Top computing experts join The National Museum of Computing
The British Newspaper Archive: Alexander Graham Bell demonstrates the telephone to Queen Victoria in 1878 – “I’m on the throne!”
Atlas Obscura: The American Textile Industry was Woven from Espionage
A spinning frame at Slater Mill. (Photo: Bestbudbrian/WikiCommons CC BY-SA 3.0)
The Public Domain Review: Auto Polo (ca. 1911)
Library of Congress: In the Muse: Performing Arts Blog: Unboxing the Buchla Model 100
Open Culture: Rick Wakeman Tells the Story of the Mellotron. The Oddball Proto-Synthesizer Pioneered by the Beatles
The Atlantic: The Travelling Salesmen of the Nuclear-Industrial Complex
Ptak Science Books: Smokestacks and Breweries – Germany, 1930
EARTH & LIFE SCIENCES:
Yovisto: Nicolas Steno and the Principles of Modern Geology
Atlas Obscura: This 19th-Century Map Shows That Beaver Dams are Built to Last
The Friends of Charles Darwin: 11-Jan-1844: Darwin confesses murder!
Geschichte der Geologie: Carl von Linné und sein schwieriges Verhältnis zu Fossilien
Science Line: A new perspective on old specimens
British Museum: Hans Sloane’s specimen tray
Ptak Science Books: An Odd & Architecturally Symphonic Structure Dedicated to Bats, Malaria, & Guano (1916)
Todayinsci: Carolus Linnaeus
Five Thirty Eight Science: The Biggest Dinosaur in History May Never Have Existed
The Recipes Project: Hans Sloane: Eighteenth-Century Mixologist
Yovisto: Wilhelm Weinberg and the Genetic Equilibrium
Embryo Project: Ross Granville Harrison (1870–1959)
The Friends of Charles Darwin: 13-Jan-1833: The day HMS Beagle nearly sank
The Guardian: The Danish Girl and the sexologist: a story of sexual pioneers
The Recipes Project: Healing Words: Quintus Serenus’ Pharmacological Poem
This View of Life: Social Darwinism, A Case of Designed Ventriloquism
Yovisto: Lewis Terman and the Intelligence Quotient
Smithsonian.com: Life and Rocks May Have Co-Evolved on Earth
European City of Science Manchester 2016: The Peppered Moth Story
© Olei Leillinger
The New India Express: Wallace: Darwin’s Rival and Admirer
The Dispersal of Darwin: Article: The Impact of Lamarck’s Theory of Evolution Before Darwin’s Theory
Forbes: How the Dissection of a Shark’s Head Revealed the True Nature of Fossils
Wild Reekie: Become a Local Environmental Historian
Ptak Science Books: The Display of Quantitative Data – a Pretty but Wanting Example, British Weather
CHEMISTRY:
homunculus: The place of the periodic table
Yovisto: Jan Baptiste Helmont and the Gases
Jan Baptiste Helmont
Chemical Heritage Magazine: A Strange and Formidable Weapon
META – HISTORIOGRAPHY, THEORY, RESOURCES and OTHER:
homunculus: The myth of the Enlightenment (again)
Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Science: Communiqué No. 92 Winter 2016 (see interview with Jai Virdi-Dhesi pp. 9–12)
DW Made for Minds: Bavaria returns stolen books worth millions to Naples
The Recipes Project: First Monday Library Chat: The Bowdoin College Library
Collectors Weekly: Physica Sacra
Public Domain Review: NYPL Release 187k Public Domain Images in Hi-Res
storify: BSHS Postgraduate Conference 2016
Early Modern Experimental Philosophy: Voltaire: Experimental Philosopher
François-Marie Arouet (1694–1778), known as Voltaire
Registrar Trek: The Next Generation: How NOT to number objects
BHL: Download How To
Society for the History of Natural History: Professor Jim Secord – awarded SHNH Founders’ Medal
Brill Online: Early Science and Medicine: Volume 20, Early Modern Colour Worlds, 2015 Contents
homunculus: More on the beauty question
Lady Science: No. 16: Gender and Forensic Science on Television
The Renaissance Mathematicus: Founders of Science?
Jonathan Saha: The Health of the History of Medicine in Southeast Asia
The Guardian: We need to talk about TED
ESOTERIC:
Atlas Obscura: The History and Uses of Magical Mandrake, According to Modern Witches
A woodcut of two mandrake plants. (Photo: Wellcome Images, London/CC BY 4.0)
BOOK REVIEWS:
Inside Higher Ed: Physics Envy
Notches: “Arresting Dress”: A Student Interview with Clare Sears
The Chronicle of Higher Education: Vial and Error
Science Museum: What to think about machines that think
University of Hartford: Associate Professor Michael Robinson’s New Book Explores Cultural Bias Among Explorers
Geographical: The Mountain
Science League of America: Bitten by the Insect Bug
The Guardian: Menagerie by Caroline Grigson – a lively history of strange animals and stranger people
Watershed Moments: Thoughts from the Hydrosphere: The Invention of Nature: Serendipity, Early Scientists, and Modern Ideas
Nature: Entomology: A life of insects and ire
History News Network: Women Who Advanced Science and Changed History: An interview with Rachel Swaby
Prospect: Where medieval magicians experimental scientists?
Ricochet: Saturday Night Science: The Hunt for Vulcan
Star Tribune: The Stargazer’s Sister by Carrie Brown
Worlds Revealed: Geography and Maps at the Library of Congress: American Geography and Geographers: Towards Geographic Science
NEW BOOKS:
Manchester University Press: The Senses in Early Modern England, 1558–1660
The Dispersal of Darwin: The Last Volcano: A Man, a Romance, and the Quest to Understand Nature’s Most Magnificent Fury
The Dispersal of Darwin: A Brief History of Creation: Science and the Search for the Origin of Life
Brill: Virtuoso by Nature: The Scientific Worlds of Francis Willughby FRS (1635–1672)
ART & EXHIBITIONS
Advances in the History of Psychology: Mar. 12th Pop-Up Museum Explores Contributions of Women of Colour in Psych
The Telegraph: The best art exhibitions of 2016 (some #histSTM connections!)
Historical Medical Library: Online Exhibition: Under the Influence of the Heavens: Astrology in Medicine in the 15th and 16th Centuries
British Museum: The Asahi Shimbun Displays: Scanning Sobek: mummy of the crocodile god Room 3 10 December 2015–21 February 2016
Horniman Museum & Gardens: London’s Urban Jungle Run until 21 February 2016
Dulwich Picture Gallery: The Amazing World of M.C. Escher
Somerset House: Utopia 2016: A Year of Imagination and Possibility
New York Public Library: Printmaking Women: Three Centuries of Female Printmakers, 1570–1900
New-York Historical Society: Silicon City: Computer History Made in New York 13 November 2015–17 April 2016
Royal College of Physicians: Scholar, courtier, magician: the lost library of John Dee 18 January–29 July 2016
Royal Geographical Society: Enduring Eye: The Antarctic Legacy of Sir Ernest Shackleton and Frank Hurley 21 November 2015–28 February 2016
The Huntarian: The Kangaroo and the Moose Runs until 21 February 2016
The Spectator: John Dee though he could talk to angels using medieval computer technology
History Extra: In pictures: John Dee, the ‘Elizabethan 007’
Royal College of Physicians: Scholar courtier, magician: the lost library of John Dee 18 January29–July 2016
The Guardian: John Dee painting originally had circle of human skulls, x-ray imaging reveals
John Dee performing an experiment before Elizabeth I, by Henry Gillard Glindoni. Photograph: Wellcome Library
Science Museum: Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age
Closing Soon: Museum of the History of Science: Henry Moseley: A Scientist Lost to War Runs until 31 January 2016
Museum of Science and Industry: Meet Baby Meet Baby Every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, & Saturday
Science Museum: Leonardo da Vinci: The Mechanics of Genius 10 February 2016–4 September 2016
The Mary Rose: ‘Ringing the Changes’: Mary Rose Museum to re-open in 2016 with unrestricted views of the ship
Royal Museums Greenwich: Samuel Pepys Season 20 November 2015–28 March 2016
Royal College of Surgeons: Designing Bodies 24 November 2015–20 February 2016
Natural History Museum, London: Bauer Brothers art exhibition Runs till 26 February 2017
Science Museum: Ada Lovelace Runs till 31 March 2016
British Library: 20th Century Maps 4 November 2016–1 March 2017
Royal Pavilion, Brighton: Exotic Creatures 14 November 2015–28 February 2016
National Maritime Museum: Samuel Pepys: Plague, Fire, Revolution Runs till 28 March 2016
Bethlem Museum of the Mind: The Art of Bedlam: Richard Dadd Runs till 6 February 2016
Closing Soon: Oxford University Museum of Natural History: Handwritten in Stone: How William Smith and his maps changed geology Runs to 31 January 2016
National Library of Scotland: Plague! A cultural history of contagious diseases in Scotland Runs till 29 May 2016
Royal Geographical Society: The Enduring Eye: The Antarctic Legacy of Sir Ernest Shackleton and Frank Hurley 21 November 2015 – 28 February 2016
Science Museum: Churchill’s Scientists Runs till 1 March 2016
THEATRE, OPERA AND FILMS:
The Denver Post: “Vera Rubin” performance a collaboration of the BETC and Fiske Planetarium
Benjamin, Director of Education, runs the visuals during a rehearsal for Vera Rubin: Bringing the Dark to Light at Fiske Planetarium in Boulder, Colorado January 13, 2015. Boulder Daily Camera/ Mark Leffingwell
Gielgud Theatre: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Booking to 18 June 2016
The Cockpit – Theatre of Ideas: Jekyll and Hyde 13 January–6 February 2016
The Regal Theatre: The Trials of Galileo International Tour March 2014–December 2017
New Diorama Theatre: Reptember Reloaded 10 January–1 February 2016
EVENTS:
City Arts and Lectures: Steve Silberman: The Untold History of Autism 28 March 2016 Live on Public Radio
Cardiff University: Lecture: Framing the Face: A History of Facial Hair, 1700–1900 20 January 2016
University of York: Lecture: Not Everyone Can Be A Gandhi: The Global Indian Medical Diaspora in the post-WWII Era 3 March 2016
NCSE: Darwin Day Approaches
University of Leeds Museum of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine: Lecture: Object 1. Horse and Rider 26 January 2016
London PUS Seminar: Celebrity Science – How Does Ancient DNA Research Inform Science Communication? 27 January 2016
University of Kent: Trial by water, or, seafarers’ perspectives on the quest for longitude, 1700–1830 27 January 2016
UWTSD London Campus: The Study Day: Introduction to Egyptian Astronomy 6 February 2016
Dittrick Museum Blog: Conversations: Edge of Disaster – Vaccines and Epidemics 21 January 2016
UCL: Lecture: Henry Nicholls: The Galapagos. A Natural History 27 January 2016
The Washington Post: These are the most exciting museum happenings in 2016
Gresham College: Lecture: Babbage and Lovelace 19 January 2016
CRASSH: Cambridge: Symposium: Death and the Afterlife 22 January 2016
CRASSH: Cambridge: Workshop: Orientalism and its Institutions in the Nineteenth Century 18 February 2016
EconoTimes: Historymiami Museum to Host Largest Map Fair in the Western Hemisphere for 23rd Year 5–7 February 2016
Dittrick Museum: Book Signing, Death’s Summer Coat 20 January 2016
Schwetzingen: Astronomie-Tagung: Von Venus-Transit zum Schwarzen Loch 19 März 2016
Chelsea Physic Garden: Round Table Discussion: Dark brilliance: Agatha Christie, poisonous plants and murder mysteries 2 February 2016
Science Museum: Symposium: Revealing the Cosmonaut 5 February 2016
British Library: Medieval manuscripts blog: Postgraduate Open Day on our Pre-1600 Collections 1 February 2016
PAINTING OF THE WEEK:
Leeuwenhoek with His Microscope by Ernest Board
(c) Wellcome Library; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
TELEVISION:
SLIDE SHOW:
VIDEOS:
Vimeo: Seeing the Invisible
Youtube: Houghton Library: Starry Messengers
Youtube: Project Diana 70th Anniversary Special Event | Moonbounce | EME
Two Nerdy History Girls: Horse-Drawn Carriages in Motion
Ri Channel: How to survive in space
Youtube: Mathematics vs astronomy in early medieval Ireland
RADIO:
PODCASTS:
Soundcloud: Sci Fri: These Outmoded Scientific Instruments Are Also Things of Beauty
Science for the People: Science in Wonderland
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Hagley Museum & Library, Wilmington, Deleware: 2016 Annual Conference – Oral History and Technology 14–15 April 2016
Pulse: CfP: Graduate Journal in History, Philosophy, Sociology of Science
University of Cambridge: Workshop: Defining Effective Digital History Mentorship 15 March 2016
Graz, Austria: STS Conference: CfP: The Role of Webvideos in Science and Research Communication
Bodleian Library: Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine Library: Science, Medicine, and Culture Seminar Programme, Hilary
Wellcome Library: History of Pre-Modern Medicine seminar series, Spring 2016
Science Museum: Research Seminar Series
University of Exeter: CfP: Postgraduate Medical Humanities Conference 28–29 July 2016
Amsterdam: CfP: Anton Pannekoek (1873–1960): Ways of Viewing Science and Society 9–10 June 2016
SIGCIS: Computer History Museum Prize: Call for Submissions 2016
University of Chicago: CfP: American Association for the History of Nursing 33rd Annual Conference
Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama: CfP: 2016 Meeting of the Southern Forum on Agricultural, Rural, and Environmental History (SFAFE) 15-16 April 2016
Jan Kochanowski University, Kielce, Poland: CfP: Borders and Crossings: International and Multidisciplinary Conferences on Travel Writing
Royal Geographical Society: CfP: Annual International Conference 30 August–2 September 2016
Vrije University Brussel, Belgium: CfP: Feeding on the nectar of the gods: Appropriations of Isaac Newton’s thought ca. 1700–1750
University of Barcelona: CfP: Joint ESHHS & Cheiron Meeting 27 June–1 July 2016
Science, Technology, the Environment, Engineering, and Medicine” (STEEM): CfP: “Science, Technology, the Environment, Engineering, and Medicine” (Russia’s Great War & Revolution, 1914-1922)
University of Amsterdam and Utrecht University: CfP: XVII UNIVERSEUM NETWORK MEETING Connecting Collections 9-11 June 2016
University of Leeds: HPS Seminar Series 2016
University of Bristol: Literature & Medicine Seminars
Notches: CfP: The History of Venereal Disease
H-Sci-Med-Tech: Call for submissions for Computer History Museum Prize
LOOKING FOR WORK:
MHS Oxford: Part-Time Exhibition Curator – ‘Back From the Dead’
University of Glasgow: The Leverhulme Trust: Collections Scholarships
MHS Oxford: Project Assistant (2 posts) – Move Project
The Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, Department II (Lorraine Daston): Postdoctoral Fellowship
ChoM News: 2016-2017 Foundation for the History of Women in Medicine Fellowship: Application Period Open
University of Kent: Research Associate: The Abortion Act: a Biography
UCL: CELL: Research Assistant
University of Groningen: Tenure track position in the philosophy, sociology and history of science applied to psychology Deadline 27 January 2016
BSHS: Outreach and Education Committee Grants: Undergraduate Dissertation Archive Grants 2016
